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In mid-October, Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation unveiled two new versions of its long-range, large-cabin jets, the G500 and G600, to be delivered in 2018 and 2019. It is already taking orders for these new iterations squarely aimed at well-heeled globetrotters. The company’s pitch: Better fuel efficiency and faster jets will save business executives time and money.

When Gulfstream CEO Larry Flynn started in the business twenty years ago, 80% of jets were sold in the U.S. and 20% internationally. Now, the mix is 50/50. Growth isn’t coming from mature markets like Europe or the Middle East, but from the emerging markets, with clients in China, Russia and Brazil helping the firm by keeping a steady stream of orders coming in during the recession. These emerging market moguls have business interests all over the world, so they need longer-range planes that seat more people, Flynn says.

Today, six of Gulfstream’s eight jets have large cabins to meet the ever growing demand from business executives. The G500 and G600 can fit up to nineteen passengers, among the largest cabins offered by Gulfstream, but at lower price points than the company’s longest range plane, the G650. The jets carry a price tag of $43.5 million, for the G500, and $54.5 million, for the G600, while Gulfstream’s top-of-the line models can approach $70 million. Penta recently named Gulfstream’s premier offering, the G650 costing $64.5 million, the best long range, large cabin jet. For more, see Penta’s “Finest Five.”

Private-jet customers are getting picky. They want more choice. “When you look at the aviation industry, everything looks the same, with love it or leave it terms,” says Anthony Tivnan, president and co-founder of jet operator Magellan Jets. And make sure to bring your lawyer along before crossing the “t’s” and dotting the “i’s” of that 30 to 50 pages of contract, he adds. (Even then, customers can wind up bloodied; for a horror story full of lessons, see “Fractional Fracas.”

“To be honest, we were following that same platform,” says Tivnan.

But now Tivnan and his fellow co-founder and CEO of Magellan jets, Joshua Hebert, think they have found a way to distinguish themselves from the competitive pack: a customizable jet card that they dub “build-a-card.” It allows travelers to mix-and-match amenities that fit their needs.

According to CEO Alex Wilcox, private jet operator JetSuite has been doubling its sales annually since its founding four years ago and is expected to close the year at about $50 million in revenue. The industry is growing rapidly, he said, with high net worth individuals wanting to own their own jets. But jet ownership is not necessarily cost effective, considering that JetSuite’s light jets burn about 130 gallons of gas per hour, Wilcox said, plus factor in the cost of hiring a crew, lodging it in a hangar and routinely servicing the plane. Chartering, jet club membership, or factional share ownership of a private jet often makes more economic sense than outright ownership.

Wilcox believes, naturally, that there is tremendous opportunity for light jets and specifically JetSuite’s chartering services. “We think of ourselves as Southwest Airlines 20 years ago, few people had heard of them and they just sneaked under the radar and grew,” he said. “Then one day everyone woke up and they were the biggest in the industry in terms of passengers carried.”

An ambitious flight plan for a four year-old company working in an industry where some argue there is overcapacity. Penta hitched a ride back to New York City with Wilcox and president Keith Rabin, after a short flight aboard JetSuite’s CJ3 jet in Teterboro, New Jersey. JetSuite has nineteen planes; 13 four-seat Embraer Phenom 100s are based on the West Coast, and six CJ3s on the East Coast. To meet increasing demand, JetSuite will add two more CJ3s to its fleet this year and may reach twelve by the end of 2014.

Say you’re a real-estate developer with properties scattered in Boston, New York, and Washington. You and your colleagues want to visit all three cities in one day rather than a city a day for three days, and do so efficiently and privately.

JetSuite, a California-based flight charter company, may be the ticket.

To charter one of their four-passenger Embraer Phenom 100s or newly-introduced six or seven seat Citation CJ3 jets, there are no upfront ownership fees or monthly membership fees. You don’t have to be a member at all, in fact.

JetSuite flies to 2,000 airports across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and will be adding Caribbean destinations starting in January. But JetSuite focuses on short flights. The Phenom can fly up to 2.5 hours, and the Citation can fly up to six hours. CEO Alex Wilcox says they do very few bi-coastal flights like New York to Los Angeles, because they would require a layover on these small planes.

So, you’re sick of commercial airlines’ ever-smaller bags of peanuts and ever-longer security lines, but you’re not ready for your own Gulf Stream or even fractional ownership of a plane. Jumpjet, which opens for business today, could provide an attractive alternative.

The membership service lets you fly on any one of a variety of private jets as long as you book at least two weeks advance. Jumpjet founder and CEO Will Ashcroft wants to provide “a gateway to private flying for the frustrated first- or business-class commercial passenger.” These are people who never found quite what they wanted in the industry’s previous array of offerings. Perhaps you balked at fractional ownership’s minimum flight-hour commitments or six-figure price tags. And maybe you don’t require charter aviation’s offer of short-notice booking or customized routes.

Jumpjet aims to cut hours of dreaded “pre-flight rubbish” like traffic en route, security lines, and waiting for boarding and takeoff. Instead, the company operates from smaller, less congested airports outside big cities, with a captain greeting and escorting you to a five to 15-seat jet from brands like Falcon, Embraer, and Hawker. Ashcroft estimates you’ll have an average of just 15 minutes between your arrival at the airport and takeoff, so “you don’t have to kill the day, starting at 5am for a meeting at 4pm,” he says.

Last week, in this seriously spooky environment, Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.B) NetJets, the inventor of the fractional private jet market, placed a $9.6 billion order for 425 aircraft from Cessna and Bombardier (BDRAF).

To find out what’s going on in the private jet market, I checked in with Steven Haas, an attorney at Cozen O’Connor who specializes in advising high net worth individuals on their aviation needs.

Haas says Buffett is at the right place at the right time, locking in today’s low rates for an expected increase in demand later in the decade. “NetJets will clearly get very good terms,” says Haas.

But almost more relevant is the fact these planes on order are midsized jets designed to fly long distances. As Penta recently reported in Jets for the Long Haul, it is cost effective to fly even mid-ranking engineers into emerging market cities via private jets, because so much time is wasted using commercial airlines to fly, say, into Brazil’s or China’s hinterland. Connections are that bad.

Haas further points out there are 5,500 airports in the world where private jets can land, versus 500 airports that can handle commercial jets. “That’s the way to go. You have privacy, you can conduct business on the aircraft, and you have no security delays in the airport,” he says.

Haas says that the economic crisis has generally spurred competition in jet aviation, and brought in a slew of new and attractive flight options. “A lot of people left the fractional market in 2009 and 2010 because they had capital tied up in their aircraft investments and they were willing to exit their programs early. They had a depleting asset, in terms of value, and they never knew when or if there would be a turnaround. For many of them they made the right decision, even though they paid a 3% or 5% remarketing fee.”

He pauses before delivering his punch line, that interest in private aviation has jumped 15% to 20% since early 2011, from the very same clients who previously bailed. “The market for pre-owned aircraft when we were going through our economic downturn was in Russia, Asia, and to some extent Europe. With the markets coming back, and corporate profits going back up, I am seeing more people ready to take a leap back into the aircraft market.” He doesn’t even think Europe will derail the budding trend.

The reason? Deals on offer for the buyer of private jet capacity are too sweet to pass up, particularly for those who don’t need a plane on demand, the premium-priced service provided by fractional ownership. “If you’re someone who uses aircraft for vacation, and you know you are going to Cabo or Aspen with plenty of time to spare, there are programs where you can get discounts [and plane capacity at] almost spot charter prices.”

Spearheading this new low-cost method of purchasing air time – the private jet equivalent to the advance, pre-paid APEX fare on commercial jets – is XOJet. The firm “typically had a program with a substantial upfront investment” but is now using “an asset utilization method.” Because the firm has a fairly large fleet of aircrafts, it can sell flight time to the casual user at “almost 30% to 40% less than what people would be charged if they needed availability.”

Flexjet, meanwhile, offers what Haas calls a walk-away lease program for the busy executive. Haas explains it as a “two year lease with no upfront money. You put money on deposit, make a lease payment, and can terminate with 90 days [notice.] This is very attractive for an individual who doesn’t want to wait for a commercial airliner.” For more on this and other new pricing options, see Penta’s More Ways to Fly Private.

Is this hasn’t made private jet travel attractive again, consider that lobbying by the business jet industry now makes it possible for you to keep your flight plan private and away from prying eyes, once a privilege exclusively reserved for the national security crowd. All that is required, since last November, is a direct application to the FAA; the aviation Feds block your routing and flight status via its Block Aircraft Registration Request (BARR) Program.

Whether that’s a good or bad thing depends, of course, on where you are sitting in church.

While I must fly a lot, I am convinced that my prayers are the only thing that keep the hunk of metal up in the air. For this reason, when asked to kick the tires of the Avanti II turboprop, I immediately asked a young and (fearless) freelance reporter, Crystal Kim, to go up in the unfriendly skies on Penta’s behalf. Here’s her lively report, not exactly reassuring for us nervous fliers:

When Piaggio Aero offered me a ride in the Avanti II, a twin turboprop business aircraft, I didn’t even ask where we were going. I just jumped in a cab, crossed two rivers and arrived 30 minutes later at the gates of the private flight building of Teterboro airport. A pilot with a southern accent and aviators beckoned me to the panoramic window. I pressed my face against the glass. There she was, “the Ferrari of the sky.”

The Italian aircraft manufacturer established in 1915 made its name in today’s aviation market with the P180 Avanti, a twin turboprop business aircraft imagined in the late 80′s amidst rising fuel costs. It was designed with border-hopping businessmen in mind. It’s basically a propeller plane that looks like a fighter jet that’s been hi-jacked by chief executives who want their cushy comforts. Some years after an unhappy production hook-up with Learjet, a takeover by a group of private investors – Piero Ferrari included – enabled Piaggio Aero to reclaim its stake in the sky as the fastest, most fuel efficient luxury aircraft in its class. Its bold claim came in the shape of the P 180 Avanti II aircraft, first delivered to North America in 2006.

The aircraft out on the tarmac had the aerodynamic forward wings and streamlined fuselage that gives the Avanti II its fighter jet look. The plane burns 100 gallons per hour, an efficient rate, because of the company’s patented “three-lifting-surfaces”: wings protruding from the nose that make the plane look like a hammerhead shark; narrow side wings; and a lighter than average tail. (For the technical specs of turboprops made by the likes of Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft go to the excellent website, Jetadvisors.com.)

Then there are the intangible savings common to all private jets. Taking into consideration the hours wasted in airport security, layovers, and bad hotel rooms, John Bingham, president and CEO of Piaggio Aero America, insists that the Avanti II saves executives serious time and money.“While time may not be quantifiable in terms of efficiency,” he says, “the biggest concern for companies and individuals flying today is being held at the mercy of airlines. With the Avanti II aircraft you are in full control of your schedule.”

In terms of comfort, the Avanti II cabin – 14.9 feet long, 5.8 feet high and 6.1 feet wide – is also roomier than, say, a Cessna Citation CJ 3 cabin which is a more typical 15.7 feet long, 4.8 feet high, and 4.8 feet wide. Its cabin hosts up to nine and is customizable. Buying the Avanti II with a fully loaded VIP interior including plush leather seats, in-flight entertainment, Wi-fi and the like can cost nearly $8 million, which is one of the more expensive turboprops on the market. Hourly base operating costs for the aircraft, the company claims, is some $1300.

With fractional ownership providers like Avantair, an executive or family can buy a minimum of an eighth’s share of the Avanti II in monthly installments. Cheaper still, the company also offers 15-50 hour Edge Cards, chits that can be traded in for flying time, that cost $67,500 to $200,000 without federal excise taxes. Pilots and service crew are included though flying one yourself is an experience all on its own.

It had been windy that morning but around four in the afternoon, the skies were clear and the sun was going down in the west. Sunglasses on, I jumped into the cockpit and Grant Spigener, chief administrative pilot of Piaggio, took us on our ascent, 3,000 feet per minute. When we hit 8,000 feet, he turned the controls over to this novice, while of course backstopping me with his own yoke (steering wheel). A rush of adrenaline oddly calming my nerves, I brought us to 17,000 feet at about 420 mph, less than half of its ceiling height of 41,200 and near its cruise speed of 463 mph. Due to New York area’s notoriously crowded air space, air control kept us at rather low altitudes.

En route to Albany, Manhattan got smaller and smaller behind us, and Grant, amazed by my steady hand, asked if I had done this before. Nope. Did I play a lot of video games? Guilty.

Truthfully, the Avanti II’s Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 integrated avionics system was intuitive enough to manage, even for a fledgling like me. On one of its LCD screens, I maneuvered the yoke to nestle a black set of wings against the pink target, like I would do on a Call Of Duty: Black Ops video game. Grant then had me monitor on a screen the aircrafts in the vicinity, before making me identify where they would appear in our field of vision.

In my last moments as a pilot, I gazed out the window to see suburban New Jersey twinkling below me. I was reminded of my first experience in an airplane, when, at 10-years-old, I flew alone to my grandmother’s house in Hawaii. Flying then seemed fantastical, a sort of magical privilege reserved for witches and reindeer. Noticing my curious expression, a kindly flight attendant took my child’s hand and led me to the cockpit. I was transfixed by the blue infinity of sky and clouds whipping by us like flying rice cakes. The Avanti II returned me to that world.

I was escorted back to my seat and sat in a stupor, trying to relive what I had just experienced up front. We reached Albany in less than 30 minutes, and, with the autopilot on, made our way back to Teterboro. Sitting in silence, Goethe came to mind. “Man does not travel just to arrive, but to go.”

I think it’s fair to say that not a lot of airplanes will have you spouting Goethe. The Avanti II is a pretty special ride.

About Penta

Written with Barron’s wit and often contrarian perspective, Penta provides the affluent with advice on how to navigate the world of wealth management, how to make savvy acquisitions ranging from vintage watches to second homes, and how to smartly manage family dynamics.

Richard C. Morais, Penta’s editor, was Forbes magazine’s longest serving foreign correspondent, has won multiple Business Journalist Of The Year Awards, and is the author of two novels: The Hundred-Foot Journey and Buddhaland, Brooklyn. Robert Milburn is Penta’s reporter, both online and for the quarterly magazine. He reviews everything from family office regulations to obscure jazz recordings.